Laura Barnett finds that Joel Horwood's new play I Heart Peterborough
at the Edinburgh Fringe is no love letter to an under-appreciated city.

To the majority of those who pass through it on their way to other, more exciting places, Peterborough is little more than a transport hub, a name on a train announcer’s list of “station stops”. So it’s interesting to see Suffolk-born writer Joel Horwood, whose play I Caught Crabs in Walberswick was a Fringe hit a few years back, turning his attention to the city for this two-hander – a co-production by Eastern Angles and Peterborough’s Key Theatre, and also Horwood’s first outing as a director.

Don’t be fooled: despite the title, this is no love letter to an under-appreciated city. On a small, spare set, decorated with a stretch of peeling, flowery wallpaper, we meet Lulu (Milo Twomey), a pink-lipsticked transvestite; and Hew (Jay Taylor), dressed in a suit and sparkly bow tie.

At first, their relationship seems to be that of club singer and accompanist — Hew sits behind a keyboard adorned with stars and glitterball. But, as Lulu launches into a no-holds-barred account of his life story (audiences are rightly warned that this show isn’t for the faint-hearted), we learn that they are actually far more intimately related.

There’s some lovely writing here, especially in Horwood’s bittersweet, pin-sharp descriptions of his hometown and its bleak Fenland setting (I especially liked Lulu’s dismissal of his colleagues at the rail station, where he works, as “human cul-de-sacs”). The two actors are also excellent — especially Taylor, who slips easily between keyboard-playing, singing and performing a variety of Peterborough accents — and there’s real tenderness beneath the rough-and-tumble of Horwood’s script.

But things also get a little overwrought at times, and I found the ending both melodramatic and confusing. Still, this is an interesting examination of two misfits, and the society that condemns them; and the play says a great deal more about Peterborough and its inhabitants than that curt announcement that it is “the next station-stop”.